The Speech Police

2006

2006-06-15-Smith-Graham-WP

Metro Board Member Fired for Comment on Gays
Washington Post, 2006-06-15

2006-06-19-Smith-Graham-Examiner

Freedom of speech and thought R.I.P.
DC Examiner, 2006-06-19

2006-07-12-Solberg

D.C. Police Chief Declares Crime Emergency
AP, 2006-07-12

Also Tuesday, the police commander whose officers investigated Senitt's killing
was reassigned after making racially sensitive comments
at a community meeting about the crime.
Cmdr. Andy Solberg spoke Monday night to residents of Washington's upscale Georgetown neighborhood who had gathered to express concerns about the slaying.

"I would think that at 2 o'clock in the morning on the streets of Georgetown,
a group of three people,
one of whom is 15 years old,
one of whom is a bald chunky fat guy,
are going to stand out,"
said Solberg, who is white.
"They were black.
This is not a racial thing to say that black people are unusual in Georgetown.
This is a fact of life."

Solberg was transferred to the department's security services division, said Sgt. Joe Gentile, a police spokesman. Ramsey, who is black, said he had received no complaints about the remarks but felt the move was necessary.

2006-07-12-Solberg-McCartney

Ask The Post
with Robert McCartney, Assistant Managing Editor, Metro
Washington Post, Wednesday, July 12, 2006; 12:00 PM

Washington - police reassignment: The reassignment of the Second District Police Commander, Andy Solberg, is the latest strange twist in how DC functions.
Solberg earned high marks from residents in 2-D for leadership and communication, and the quick capture of suspects after the Georgetown murders is a great relief.
While I imagine in hindsight he might have chosen more careful words at the Georgetown forum the other evening, his swift transfer to "school security detail" is baffling.
Indeed, it seems that perceived "racial insensitivity"
is the only conduct that jeopardizes one's job in DC.
It certainly trumps gross incompetence, wanton indifference and poor leadership.
Look at the bungled Rosenbaum case: with one exception, all of the EMTs, fire fighters, police and Chief Thompson are still in their positions!

Robert McCartney: This is an interesting comment related to the hot topic of the day, the newly declared crime emergency in the District. Chief Ramsey, in relieving Solberg, said specifically that Solberg was a good policeman and not a racist. But Ramsey said he took the action he did to protect the confidence of the community in the police department. Perception of the community matters here.

2006-07-14-Solberg

Officer Apologizes for Racially Insensitive Comment
Washington Post, 2006-07-14

2006-07-25-Solberg

Police Inspector Who Made Racial Remark Back at Job
Washington Post, 2006-07-25

2009

2009-02-10-Scheuer

This has been moved here.

2010

2010-02-22-Walt-On-grabbing-the-third-rail

On grabbing the third rail
By Stephen M. Walt
walt.foreignpolicy.com, 2010-02-22

Top ten ways to handle a “smear campaign”

2011

2011-01-09-Scheuer

This is how Israel-First works to silence and damage its critics
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2011-01-09

2012

2012-01-19-WP-Wallsten-ADL-reaction-to-CAP-use-of-Israel-firster

Center for American Progress, group tied to Obama,
under fire from Israel advocates
By Peter Wallsten
Washington Post, 2012-01-19

[What could better exemplify
the success of powerful Jewish forces to control, for the benefit of Israel,
American discourse,
than the situation described in this article?]

The Center for American Progress,
a liberal think tank closely aligned with the White House,
is embroiled in a dispute with several Jewish organizations over charges that
some center staffers
have publicly used language that could be construed as
anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic.

[So one must worry about every possible way of construing what one says?]

...

Among the points of contention are
Twitter posts by one CAP writer on his personal account
referring to “Israel-firsters.”
Some experts say the phrase has roots in
the anti-Semitic charge that American Jews are more loyal to a foreign country, Israel, than to the United States.
[What baloney.
The meaning of the term “Israel-firster” is clear.
And no doubt some Americans, both Jewish and gentile,
indeed are more loyal to Israel than to the United States.
What these Jewish organizations have successfully done
is to suppress the ability of elite organizations to talk openly, "in public",
about this fact.
This is an application of the observation that
you can influence how people think
by limiting their ability to express their ideas.
The speech police (example here) are a branch of the thought police.
For more on this, please see the writings of Norman Finkelstein.]
In another case, a staffer described a U.S. senator
as showing more fealty to the prime U.S. pro-Israel lobby,
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
than to his own constituents.
[From all I have read, that applies to many members of Congress.]
The first writer has since left the staff.

But the critics also point to writings on the CAP Web site,
where staffers have suggested that
AIPAC was pushing the United States toward war with Iran
and likened Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
to the policies of the segregated American South.

[How quaint.
That last is exactly a comparison Jimmy Carter,
who certainly does know about the policies in the pre-desegreation American South,
has already made.]

Some major Jewish groups have demanded corrective action by the think tank
and asked for answers from friends in the White House.

“The language is corrosive and unacceptable,”
said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
["Corrosive."
Exactly the word my ex-wife used to describe my speech.]
He added that the blog posts and tweets from CAP staffers
“are the responsibility of the adults who run the place,
not only the kids who play.”

[Wow.
Talk about Jewish control over American society.]

Cooper conveyed his concerns about CAP during a White House meeting last week
with Obama’s newly appointed Jewish community liaison, Jarrod Bernstein,
who told Cooper that the situation at CAP was “troubling” and
not reflective of “this administration.”

CAP officials say the incidents in question were an anomaly.

...

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League,
said some of the statements from CAP staffers
“are anti-Semitic and borderline anti-Semitic.”

“We’re concerned about it because this is a serious think tank,
and it does influence the administration,” Foxman added.

Jason Isaacson, of the American Jewish Committee, said he was concerned by
“very troubling things that have been written on a pretty regular basis
by certain people associated with the organization.”

“For any serious policy center there are certain lines of
fairness and objectivity and good sense that should not be crossed,
and yet, disturbingly, those lines have regularly been crossed,” he added.

[Ho, ho, ho.
"Fairness and objectivity" mean that one cannot question whether
those who support all Israeli actions,
in the face of near-total world disapproval for those actions,
are not in fact showing more loyalty to
the current political system in Israel and its policies
than to what a sober reflection would indicate is the American national interest?]

The controversy could add friction to
the already tense relationship between Obama and many pro-Israel Jews,
a constituency the president has courted for donations and political support.

...

[For documentation on the pro-Israel polices of the American political system and much of the elite,
see two books by Paul Findlay,
Deliberate Deceptions and They Dare to Speak Out.
For information from an ostracized American Jew on this,
see Norman Finkelstein's
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.

Philip Weiss has a note on this situation here.]

2014

2014-03-22-NYT-as-diversity-increases-slights-get-subtler-but-still-sting

The Big Topic on Campus: Racial ‘Microaggressions’
By TANZINA VEGA
New York Times, 2014-03-22

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —

A tone-deaf inquiry into an Asian-American’s ethnic origin.
Cringe-inducing praise for how articulate a black student is.
An unwanted conversation about
a Latino’s ability to speak English without an accent.

This is not exactly the language of traditional racism,
but in an avalanche of
blogs, student discourse, campus theater and academic papers,
they all reflect the murky terrain of the social justice word du jour —
microaggressions —
used to describe the subtle ways
that racial, ethnic, gender and other stereotypes can play out painfully
in an increasingly diverse culture.

["Microaggressions"?
Just the latest attempt by TeamPC to play victim.
Like the accusation long made by feminists,
that men "undress them with their eyes".
A clear impossibility, but what do feminists care about reality
when they can make accusations against men?]

On a Facebook page called “Brown University Micro/Aggressions”
a “dark-skinned black person” describes feeling alienated from
conversations about racism on campus.
A digital photo project run by a Fordham University student about “racial microaggressions”
features minority students holding up signs with comments like
“You’re really pretty … for a dark-skin girl.”
[So minority students held up those signs.
Are they the "aggressors"?
If not, who is?]
The “St. Olaf Microaggressions” blog includes
a letter asking David R. Anderson, the college’s president,
to address
“all of the incidents and microaggressions that go unreported on a daily basis.”

What is less clear is how much is truly aggressive and how much is pretty micro —
whether the issues raised are a useful way
of bringing to light often elusive slights
in a world where overt prejudice is seldom tolerated,
or a new form of divisive hypersensitivity,
in which casual remarks are blown out of proportion.

The word itself is not new —
it was first used by Dr. Chester M. Pierce,
a professor of education and psychiatry at Harvard University,
in the 1970s.
Until recently it was considered academic talk
for race theorists and sociologists.

The recent surge in popularity for the term can be attributed, in part,
to an academic article Derald W. Sue, a psychology professor at Columbia University,
published in 2007 in which
he broke down microaggressions into
microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations.
Dr. Sue, who has literally written the book on the subject,
called “Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation,”
attributed the increased use of the term
to the rapidly changing demographics in which
minorities are expected to outnumber whites in the United States by 2042.
“As more and more of us are around,
we talk to each other and we know we’re not crazy,”
Dr. Sue said.
Once, he said, minorities kept silent about perceived slights.
“I feel like people of color are less inclined to do that now,”
he said.

...

Whites do not have the same freedom to talk about race that nonwhites do,
[Dr. John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at Columbia University] said.
If it is socially unacceptable for whites to consider blacks as “different in any way”
then it is unfair to force whites to acknowledge racial differences,
he said.

[How ridiculous can you get?
Of course blacks are different genetically.
Not only is that visually obvious,
but genetic research has demonstrated it.
How many diseases have been reported to correlate with skin color?
Many have been reported in this very New York Times
See “Race, gender differences” for several examples.
On the other hand,
"elite" media and "elite" universities seem to be
promoting a policy of deliberate deceit on these issues
to promote the interests of those who stand to gain from
avoiding straight, honest talk about genetic differences in race, gender and other areas.]

...